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Pope Francis Calls On Families To Support Their LGBT Children

By Niki Cruz
Published on: 04:41 PST, Dec 9, 2014

Pope Francis is all about giving support to the LGBT community. That said, a new interview reveals that a recent discussion about the LGBT community was focused on LGBT children instead of same-sex marriage. The latter issue has been a hot topic since Pope Francis took a stand in supporting gay rights, but families supporting their LGBT children was weighing on the Pope’s mind.

According to The Advocate, the conversation took place at the Roman Catholic Church’s Synod of Bishops. The Pope told an Argentinian newspaper, La Nación of the importance of families supporting their gay children.

The newspaper brought up the issue between the conservative sectors, and their fears about the confusion over the traditional doctrine. This is due to the mention of “positive nuances” on gay couples living together, even though the bishops backed off from this.

Pope Francis clarified that same-sex marriage wasn’t a conversation that was brought up at the synod.

“The synod addressed the family and the homosexual persons in relation to their families, because we come across this reality all the time in the confessional: a father and a mother whose son or daughter is in that situation. We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their son or daughter. That´s what the synod addressed. That´s why someone mentioned positive factors in the first draft. But this was just a draft.”

Although this is just a draft, this is still a huge accomplishment for the LGBT community. Finally, their voices are being heard in a way that hasn’t existed in the Catholic Church. Not only are their voices being heard, but modern concerns that have yet to be addressed until now are reaching families.

Parents supporting their LGBT children is a huge learning curve for religious families or just something that in the past was pushed under the rug. If the Pope is open to discussing important issues that exist in the LGBT community, this will surely open discussion up in homes. Too many LGBT children feel dismissed in the world because of the Catholic Church’s teachings.

Too many children and teens are sent to camps and undergo emotionally damaging therapies to “fix” their homosexuality. If the Catholic Church introduced understanding and acceptance, beliefs like praying the gay away might be a thing of the past.

Despite all of this progress, Pope Francis still has an uphill battle. Marianne Duddy-Burke, the executive director of the LGBT Catholic group DignityUSA, said right-wing interests are still putting an enormous amount of pressure on the Vatican to uphold the status quo.

“I think that the continued witness to the fact that there are LGBT families of all sorts in our church is even more important in the face of this kind of opposition, and I think families need to keep being visible and keep speaking up about the challenges that we face.”

[Image via giulio napolitano / Shutterstock.com]

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